Piper Navajo - Twin Engine Beast - Panther Conversion

I'm CA this is my 1980 Piper Navajo panther the cabin class Piper Navajo was built from 1967 until 1984 the aircraft originally had 310 horsepower engines although this one was rebranded as they Panther when it was reengineer or sperm odor and q-tip propellers nearly 18-hundred of the aircraft were built although with the variants also including the chieftain almost four thousand were built like many aircraft in the 1980s higher fuel costs and decreased demand for corporate aircraft put it into this in 1984 [Music] in this video we're going to talk to the owner CA and then take it up in the air for a test flight [Music] so let's talk to CA and learn more about this airplane I'm very fortunate to come from a family of aviators my grandfather was a pilot and he also flew for the for the business and my father did the same he got his CFI a long time ago which at the time I didn't appreciate but it allowed me the ability to log hours since before I could literally see over the the panel so I actually started instrument flying before I ever started visual flying because I simply could see out of the plane your father can never really be your true instructor but yes yes and no obviously too you know for check rides and things like that it made more sense for me to go get polished up with a CF I who did it for a living it day to day and you know knows the the right way of teaching rather than learning from the my father of his stakes which is very valuable as well this is a 1980 Piper Navajo originally was called the cr4 counter-rotating they also called it the - 325 it's a three years younger than I am which is kind of interesting for what we needed it's the only plane that I could really make fit the bill as far as being able to go in and out of a short field having a large useful load all-weather capability and at the same time affordable the most easy to recognize modification obviously with any Navajo is what they call the panther modification that puts the larger 350 horsepower j2b motors on it with four bladed props the q-tips and different cowlings but above that this airplane has two other modifications - including vortex generators it has a Lena gear modification which decreases the cycle time the Lena gear which is very good for a short field it's about five seconds to go from two retract landing gear lots of panel modifications including a g600 TXI Garmin long-range fuel tanks so this airplane has the ability to go like well yesterday I flew for a little over five hours and still had more than an hour fuel reserve depending on power settings gives you a true thousand nautical mile range if you need it well ok I said a Navajo is probably one of the you know just like any airplane everything's a compromise it's not particularly good at any one area I typically cruise between eight thousand depending on winds obviously higher goes faster Trier speed goes up but you burn more fuel to get up there at ten thousand feet the 65% power setting I'm typically seeing about 185 knots true on about forty three gallons an hour rich of peak and then when I need to go further I pull the power back to fifty five percent power and at that same altitude I'll see between 170 175 knots true burning about 35 gallons an hour you know obviously it's a trade-off between how much fuel you can carry it how much payload but the cabin weight on this airplane we can put up to 1,300 pounds in the cabin so we had a lot of useful load and for what we need to do visiting some of our customers it makes more sense to bring our demonstration equipment to their facilities and we pride ourselves in making the equipment as rugged which means heavy in a lot of cases as we possibly can so having the ability to to remove seats with a you know I've weighting balances for every seat configuration you can think of so I can bring you know one of my service guys if I need someone like that or another salesman with me and then also have all the demonstration equipment we need while still being able to get in and out of a short field my home base is only 2,500 feet long I had a Seneca before this airplane and it would do all of that except not carry enough weight so the next thing you know there's there's not a whole lot of airplanes that fit this bill these days most people are using airplanes to haul you know a couple of people and some golf clubs and that's not what I'm doing I guess a Pilatus pc-12 would certainly do what I needed to do including going another short field number one I don't have a hangar big enough and number two I don't have a wallet big enough so I specifically did not want a hangar Queen a plane that had a brand new interior a brand new exterior paint job I wanted a plane that was really mechanically sound so I about a little over a year ago when I decided to make a jump into something bigger I contacted of course Mike Jones who is the owns all the STC's for the Navajos and he found a plane that had a very unique history almost one owner its entire life in Alabama foam by professional pilots relatively low hours and a 15 year old paint and interior and the engines were almost to their tbo so he did a firewall forward so everything under the cow at the most pretty part of the plane is that under the cowling and on the panel so you most people can't see from the outside that a couple weeks ago a company called aviation wraps comm applied a wrap a special 3m aviation wrap over the green stripe and changed the tail number and of course put the company logos so now what are the colors match our company colors and it's a little more unique stands out a little better and and like I said I didn't want a brand new paint job or brand new interior because this is a working airplane and it's got stuff being thrown in it all the time so I get it I think it really fits what I what I needed and what I what I was looking for in a Navajo I didn't want a brand new lock and key that's too pretty to use the way I need to use it but at the same time I needed something that was very reliable and you know get the job done there q-tip props that's part of the Panther ization and you know it's one of those things that back in the 80s I think they thought it was a good idea and it probably does have some merit basically makes it a little bit quieter and gives you the effect of a longer prop without having with a shorter diameter whether or not it's just you know certainly not as good as the new carbon fiber you know but that is what it is flight to know nice you know dual alternators do love vacuum pumps lots of different redundancy on the systems so my grandfather invented a device that measures the density of liquids as they're flowing through a pipeline or as they're being mixed in a tank using a very simple optical measurement principle the original applications were in the citrus industry and since then we've found lots of other applications where the concentration of a liquid needs to be measured everything from how much sugar is mixed in a soft drink the strength of battery acid coolants for you know all kinds of different applications whether to be machining things or of keeping a car cool or even batteries in a car diesel exhaust fluid lots of different things most recent one last week is a company that extracts oil from a plant-based material for medicinal purposes any time some solution is dissolved together our instrument can measure that very quickly and very accurately and more ruggedly lasting longer than what the competition has talked to our web page is electron machine calm so that'd be the quickest place to go we also have some YouTube videos for the company as well and then we also do a some videoing of some of our flights and that can be found in there Charlie alpha aviation alright you ready to fly sure all right clear prop [Music] having that air-conditioning is nice yeah it still barely keeps up with it though hey that's cool you got a that's a garment this is a garment g600 TXI so it's it's got the you know the knobs but you can also do the touchscreen as well and it's got a full synthetic vision of course here there's not much to see great yeah yeah but out the hills it's pretty cool yeah and it's coupled to to the auto pilot through this module here so it still has the original KFC 200 auto pilot but this will do up to pre-select so like right now I'll hit I'll hit hitting I'm assuming we're gonna take off runway one-six but I can enter that in go ahead put our altitude in say 2500 for now I'll hit to go around button that'll break my cut me in bars this and then hit harm so after takeoff I can sync up to our vertical speed turn autopilot on yeah it's your you go easy to go okay cool I was just pressurized this is not pressurized there yeah that's what what I wanted it for maintenance and for my calculations it unless we're going on a long trip with a lot of tail in it doesn't make much sense to go bunch above 12,000 and f4 flight you can actually before flight it's very easy to have all the profiles set up so that you can you know see ahead of time what makes sense how much fuel in time it takes to go you know it all to give a trip at altitudes of power setting so it's very nice arlington ground piper navajo or zero charlie often nano for Charlie I'll fall on the ground good morning sir 4-0 Charlie alphas got the automated weather we're at Harrison aviation like to depart via far to the south do something your work 2,500 eo0 charlie off year and per Harrison correct I permit up sir Charlie you can move around the corner hold short about the taxiway for now around the corner culture to Apple a little bit of lower scut out there but I should I'll get above that I don't know higher punch five to five amigo and startx got the navajo coming off the Harrison ramp for the runway and that mojo charlie offer only one attack to be out for the archer northbound now he'll be acting then on to the ramp okay runway one-six via op LaFollette we'll look after the archer yet so you said forty forty three gallons and our cruise or something yeah at sixty-five percent power that makes the most sense we can pull the props back to 2200 to that power setting so it's nice and quiet that's what most people cruise these at keep the engine to relatively cool the you know keeping the cylinder head temperatures cool on these big adjust is it there's a problem so yeah you don't just you know hope yours you know that you're always happening but I imagine but you know the equipment you got to carry around it would be impossible to airline with it impossible so the only other I should be driving and I would most likely have to have you know like a suburban or something you know and I'd be on the road all the time driving though this and I would only be able to do once one call a day because a lot of you can't get them in the same area and I have to all that you see them at the same time so right all right we'll do a little run up [Music] but we talked about it in a previous video he's doing his mag check but then you're also gonna do the prof check right and you're just but here when you're doing the project you're checking that you hack and feather the props where they turn like blade into the wind right a bit of responding exactly and the reason you do that for that for the viewers lose an engine I'm takeoff and set up and just a big fan block and win you want to turn the blades into the wind and that way it's less drag exactly that's exactly unfeathered propeller is basically a discount they're just a tremendous amount of drag right and uh any piston twin you have to do everything just right okay time to climb on one engine there was a king air just the other day out at us oh hey that's their initial reports seem to be they just didn't feather it in time and a hoarder they didn't react soon enough you know it's a tremendous amount of responsibility fine a twin absolutely knowing when to sew just afford to take off I think it's the the most important thing if anything goes wrong on takeoff before we get the gear up while we're under blue line we basically need to land right now don't do it you want to do it normal takeoff short pill takeoff uh yeah it's do a short field right so short field takeoff you rotate at 71 we pitch for 87 it requires 93 and then of course we're looking at that 104 which is blue okay and Arlington Tower Piper Navajo 4-0 Charlie oppas ready to go over only one six Navajo or zero Charlie Arlington tower hold short runway one-six working here correction landing shopping I'll shorten we want six where's your Charlie I got a arc you're on approach they're clear for takeoff we got the site for jira Charlie off everyone six they're always doing that at the Bell Helicopter thing last time I forget what it's called they had the v-tail like Osprey you're out doing stuff the civilian version yeah bring it down five level November on golf this will just take off obviously a departures of South pepper 5 Bravo November Roger South departure pruners and navajo taking the runway he'd also southbound he's doing that he's about to go too so it's a short field you got power up hold the brakes they're ready to go make sure everything for the green oh well yeah there's pulling up good looking for about 40 to 43 inches of manifold pressure already at 40 knots yeah this might be a good right there oh yeah off there huh oh that is cool right there next day like I was good we were off the off at 70 knots well I'm in it that was a minute go ahead 99 [Music] my problem of inference the traffic incitement obviously it is turbocharged right which getting that kind of mana but it's just not restaurants did you copy I have extra traffic he's still with approach control about 13 stop descending after he got before have an inbound Arlington of course here Charlie after we look at that Jenny take a hole here or something do you have oxygen in this thing if you needed to get a hoard oxygen hooked up here yeah and it's a big tank outlet how high can you take this it's rated for 24,000 but I usually use the cannulas which works great up to 18 so 17 is pretty common yeah I have the autopilot engage on heading bug or climbing at 2500 feet six miles now northbound at 3,000 defending where's your Charlie alpha we have it on the display Thank You Roger I believe that's what she's talking about here extra video loops around us I always like the feel of a twin tonight but it's just so stable I don't know I do guys because I guess cuz it's heavier you know you get in a single inch sometimes you get bounced around even though nice ones you know and the wing loading is better for turbulence you know it is a very stable honest instrument flying plane so I'll head it as 400 feet above it yeah it's uh traffic 1230 miles I see him I'm a turtle turned left a little go back to the left huh I got him in sight and I should say kinky writer I might want any tech to be alpha alpha one Bravo Bravo one oh yeah we would have been close there no I'm gonna Charlie alphabet X turn out you're a one o'clock left in the mouth traffic inside where's your child or they'll try out the frequency change approved it where's your Charlie off the fridge a double there you go South a little bit more climb up and then compare can i afar yeah that'd be great you can just set the altimeter I mean ahead your helps to to learner there and then just verticals beat it all the way up big exactly what i i changed whatever after they want here and then I hit arm that takes the altitude hold off upright than autopilot then I just have to tell them how fast I want okay and I manually had to do that so won't there's no vertical speeds alike but it will capture them and it does a great job capturing yeah you know if you're doing a lot of cross country stuff I mean it we did a cross-country the other day down just down to off to the back you know the woman who was with hand flew at the whole time but I mean if you're having to do you know you're doing this daily nice to have a good autopilot you can rely on to help for cross-country stuff and single pilot IFR in this plane it's almost been a mo quipment have to have a functioning autopilot yeah I would think so I mean cuz you gotta manage so much so much going on yeah but do you normally but your boat would be your cruising to power down here normally at 65% power be about 30 inches 2200 rpm and then for long flights 55% power is the same 22 in our camp death back to about 26 inches what I was doing yesterday down here you're well we're still increasing speed and it'll take a little bit for it to come up to speed but quite light but you but your normal great speed down here yeah honest with you feel fairly down here yeah we'll see 165 or so I think yeah once it creeps up a 22 gallons aside right now 21 and a half Oh clean it up you know I start with with using the TI tre GT for the UH into the turbochargers of course want to try the TI t here as well looking at CH D I got the count class completely closed and then I just know with these engines you know 7500 Reiser H of peak what those settings are 15-20 on this one fourteen eighty on that one and then start monitoring the cylinder head temperatures right now the scrolls through number three number four and number six are Mahon cylinder so you know always on the lookout for those all those are in the back rain or no yeah I'm gonna get the you know there's always airflow issues inside of cowling yeah and you're looking to keep the CH D under like 384 I wish yeah and I wish that's Prada these are these are you know special blue a power bi blueprint is a company that they think that Mike Jones juices to put these engine together and we run the cylinder head temperatures up to 430 are really in continuous which is a lot but that's what they they say that they can do and you have to replace the cylinder heads more often you think or we'll see okay on 350 hours on them anything you'd like to do some kind of ear work uh yeah you'd show a steep turn or something here if you want it flips like Willie's not the one traffic here we get Scylla back I know that's 10 miles away we're a pretty good state we'll do a left turn sure we don't get Laura sick back there I'll be good he's been on a boat long enough yeah nice stable through here [Music] Oh I want to drive all right I should have said him oh I'm not ready for the night regional approach Piper Navajo 4-0 charlie offer the bit before 0 charlie off of that correct I firmly soap I've been have a 4-0 Charlie alpha you should see an IFR for us to go back in to we're down near Hillsboro municipal back to Arlington yeah my let me uh take a look for it what's your current position out there there currently a twenty miles south of Arlington sir November 4 zero Charlie alpha squawk four six seven seven four six seven seven where's your Julia another fourth your charlie pal you are radar contact twenty mouth South are that didn't show you at 4500 quick to the clasp of airspace maintain VFR 4,000 huh you said you had an IFR about Oh couldn't be fr 4,000 third class Bravo I believe we've got an iron pilot not meeting Elvis Oh Charlie office yeah just for traffic we paid for the traffic's 11 o'clock and see two and a half miles east about the king Eric five of course they're chillin if it has that traffic up there Charlie alpha Roger continued eat that the 3,500 are gonna be this heading for Midway 3,500 for is your choppers yet there's a key my fortune Choya that's the key here inside Azir Charlie alpha Roger you're clear to the Arlington Airport via radar vectors that maintain 3000 and don't fly your present heading what approach would you like into Arlington clear to Arlington via vectors at number 3,000 and we'll take the aren't halfway 1/6 approach in Arlington for is zero Y is there Charlie off the expect are never only 3/4 circle labor 1/6 maintain 3,000 traffic 2 o'clock 5 miles northwest Bennett for the Cirrus ok our nap runway 3/4 circle and when we went six tours their child I think old olive white why'd you ask me what I wanted that's sorry I mean I mean if we haven't shown a circle the land approach yet so so basically for the viewers they're a circle and so we were doing the heart out so the winds out of the south so we're landing so while you're well proceed directly like intercept the final approach course be paid 2,300 2,300 to East psych could you say that one more time for up where's your joy I'm sorry dear Charlie alpha Sena maintain 2,300 2,300 and turn ten degrees right intercept the final approach course let's just do that 23 right to intercept final approach towards your giant project there don't see any Salif I activate the event through 3,000 I maintain 2,300 okay down three 3,000 2,304 Zhi Liang did somebody I'll call out answer a busy day so easy to do easy to set up an approach landing north there's a there's an approach venomous which is a lot lower than a circle middle of the circle minimums higher and takes it down should takes down below the cloud deck once we get the airport in sight then we circle around and land the other way I've already got the glide slope coming up here extra rich fuel pumps on flights on November dear Charlie out by your 4 and a half from Mike maintain 2,300 dollars that will shut up not our proof course quick for the yard aberrantly 3/4 circle in another one six maintain 2300 to establish clear to them that's probably 3/4 circle and 1/6 pours your Charlie on be naked and now you said I left our dad probably 3/4 are cold one pick our net sorry little unsafe scores they're timing things by going on real quick here and film a video and fly plane to do Nishant approach on the clock that's why you were saying earlier it's pretty much a requirement to have an uh an autopilot on this you know trying to do everything you just did without the autopilot and flies you may be really tough and as tower sticking out of the clouds that kind of cool all right we're below 150 go throw the gear down there's every green one in the history Club maintained five thousand five hundred five thousand five hundred thousand 803 there did Charlie alpha contact garlic entire one to eight point six to one to eight point six two four to eleven and are late to tower Piper Navajo four zero Charlie I'll close with you approach and Navajo alcoholism power reports definitely to eat for a left down with a runway one-six previous aircraft it'd be our nav in as well reported basis 1500mm Phil okay it looks like we're about to break off now reports certainly into the East Room only one six where's your Charlie on things all right breaking out there she is [Music] now 4-0 Charlie off those arrested are circling out to the east they don't get downwind firmly one six zero totally opera only one round clearly and really one six or is there gently open thank you alright three green one of the mirror we're here to be a pop song traffic 12 o'clock low less than one mile down the runway they're coming into the runway yeah actually on the ground I have to do a lot of short field landing so I almost do every landing a short field landing point and you say dude practice in a minute about 2,500 feet ercell 2,500 feet is my home base so yeah obviously I don't go in there and gross weight or anything like that but I the vortex generators I believe really add to the stability give you a gross weight increase as well it but the slow flight of this bear plane is very forgiving much more forgiving than the Seneca v I used to have like if you got below 80 not seen all the sudden you're in no man's land right and where this plane is seems like there's no more buffer [Music] I shall slow up right down there not Sam Oh decide pretty good at that's B - it does a lot of drag yeah oh yeah right on the numbers and slowing her down there so I could see oh I haven't even touched the brick yeah I mean that's 1,000 foot marker right there right so yeah you'd be great gonna easily put it in at a 1500 foot field if you really had to I guess well done sir thank you I see a thank you so much thank you I enjoyed it yeah I did - it's really cool air playing on its first time I've flown in one of these so really enjoyable every good alright guys pretty cool airplane glad we got flying it thank you so much for watching and subscribing please do so if you're really enjoying it you can go to patreon.com/scishow ILS time I'm going to support this whole thing and there should be an email all popping up or below or whichever ways convenient Bobby at failing doodles sailing doodles my other youtube channel check that one if you have it and if you got everything you want to go fly let's do it it'll be a lot of fun [Music]

Channel: Flying Doodles

Views: 369,878

Rating: 4.925096 out of 5

Keywords: flying, Piper navajo, piper, twin engine, panther, panther conversion, navajo, chieftain, career in aviation, aviation, airplane, takeoff, cessna, landing, flight vlog, flight, aircraft, pilot, airport, foreflight, general aviation, landing an airplane, planes, mzeroa, becoming a pilot, cockpit, plane

Id: gGjld2aw3ZA

Length: 28min 11sec (1691 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 16 2019